120 kmph was invented in ’72 due to the oil crisis. At that time we were driving around in Renault 5 and 2cvs that had maximum speeds of 140 kmph. After the oil crisis ended governments did no longer want to loose their interesting revenues on speeding tickets and just maintained it with new excuses like safety… While it is widely recognized that Germany has the worst highways, certainly since they had to shift their budgets to upgrade East-Germany, but still manage to have better safety track records than its neighbors?!

Cars have more airbags than supermarkets have plastic bags at their cashiers nowadays (which is a great thing for environment) and the cheapest cars are tested on race tracks to drive safely at 200 kmph. Needless also to say what kind of improvements have been made on our tires and so on…

Now in the early morning you leave for work and are among few on the highway all driving at 120 kmph. Driving from Antwerp to Brussels is a 40 km drive taking you 20 minutes at this speed. If we were allowed to drive at 160 kmph this trip would only take you 14 minutes! On a 40 km drive this bunch of cars would have left the highway 6 minutes faster making room for the next and so on.

Of course this would imply:1. cleaner cars with lower emissions but we are anyway heading that way. 2. that 95 year olds still driving their car should be checked for capabilities (today they are a real danger and nothing seems to stop them except for their family or their insurance policy)3. that driving exams include some ability testing on skid pads rather than only driving around cones on ridiculous parking lots.